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In his most provocative book yet, Pulitzer Prize­–winner Garry Wills asks the radical question: Why do we need priests?

Bestselling author of Papal Sin and Why I Am a Catholic, Garry Wills spent five years as a young man at a Jesuit seminary and nearly became a priest himself. But after a lifetime of study and reflection, he now poses some challenging questions: Why do we need priests at all? Why did the priesthood arise in a religion that began without it and opposed it? Would Christianity be stronger without the priesthood, as it was at its outset?

Meticulously researched, persuasively argued, and certain to spark debate, Why Priests? asserts that the anonymous Letter to Hebrews, a late addition to the New Testament canon, helped inject the priesthood into a Christianity where it did not exist, along with such concomitants as belief in an apostolic succession, the real presence in the Eucharist, the sacrificial interpretation of the Mass, and the ransom theory of redemption. But Wills does not expect the priesthood to fade entirely away. He just reminds us that Christianity did without it in the time of Peter and Paul with notable success.

Wills concludes with a powerful statement of his own beliefs in a book that will appeal to believers and nonbelievers alike and stand for years to come as a towering achievement.

Editorial Reviews

As a boy caddying at a local golf course, Wills marveled at how overawed golfers would surrender their tee times to any Catholic priest showing up with a golf bag. Now a mature author, Wills explains such deference to clerics as a trivial but telling instance of priestly privilege. That privilege, Wills argues, reflects the position of the priest as the singularly holy figure who presides over the ritual of transforming the consecrated host and wine into Christ’s flesh and blood through the miracle of transubstantiation. Wills sees no trace of this miracle in the gospel account of the Lord’s Supper, nor any evidence of priests’ leading the church of the New Testament. The scriptural text typically cited to justify the Catholic understanding of the eucharist and the priesthood—namely, the Epistle to the Hebrews—here receives skeptical scrutiny as a dubious late addition to the canon. Professing faith in the Catholic creed but attacking the Catholic priesthood with Protestant zeal, Wills invites readers into a dialogue outside of ecclesiastical boundaries. --Bryce Christensen

Review

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Praise for Why Priests? by Garry Wills:

“Wills draws on his expertise in classical languages and his wide reading in ecclesiastical history to argue that the Catholic/Orthodox priesthood has been one long mistake.”—The Washington Post

“Wills sets out to persuade his fellow-Catholics that the priesthood is both unnecessary and un-Christian. . . . Wills is not attempting to break with the Church or to dismantle it. Rather, he wants to assure the faithful that they can get by without priests. ‘If we need fellowship in belief,’ he writes, ‘we have each other.’”—The New Yorker

“How. . .did priests become dominant and then essential in Catholic Christianity? And why, Wills asks, in this provocative [and] historically rich . . . book, does the Vatican continue to sustain such falsehoods? . . . Wills’s demolition of the many myths surrounding the origins of priestly status and function is in itself crucially informative and enlightening.”—The New Republic

“Using his linguistic skills and his impressive command of both secondary literature and patristic sources, Wills raises doubts aplenty about ‘the Melchizedek myth,’ and the priestly claims for Jesus in the ‘idiosyncratic’ Epistle to the Hebrews … His final chapter is a model of elegant simplicity, a contrast (intended or not) to the flummery often associated with his own church … ‘There is one God, and Jesus is one of his prophets,’ Wills concludes, ‘and I am one of his millions of followers.’ For those millions, scattered across time and space, that’s an affirmation worthy of celebration.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Do we really need Catholic Priests? Wills, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Why I Am a Catholic, dares to pose this controversial question[.] . . . One cannot help but be impressed with this brilliant work written by a scholar whose love for the Church compels him to make it better.”—Publishers Weekly

“Wills’s . . . position is . . . original and insightful . . . [and his] task is a worthy one, namely to bring the institution of the priesthood under the gaze of historical and theological scrutiny. . . . Through his erudite scholarship and his compelling argumentation Wills has made an important contribution to this field of study and, in the process, has written a book that is thoroughly absorbing and engaging.”—Irish Times

More About the Author

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine's Childhood, Saint Augustine's Memory, and Saint Augustine's Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

As a priest who was raised in the pre-Vatican II era Church, experienced (and celebrated) the radical changes that came afterward, and now have lived long enough to see a marked backsliding into the same kind of clericalism that we had hoped had been finally overcome (I'll give Wills two stars for trying) I would have given this book a much higher rating than I have, except for what I see as a couple of major flaws (thus the denial of several stars) in his argument. First, despite Wills' deep knowledge of the Greek language, of perhaps because of it, he plays fast and loose with the earliest patristic traditions, quoting passages that he thinks supports his claims, but generally ignoring those that would make the reader think twice. This is most evident in Wills book when he quotes the passage in Justin Martyr'sfamous "Apology" (Chap 66) to show how Christians saw the Eucharistic meal not as a "sacrifice" but strictly as a commemorative meal, even while skipping where Justin explains where the bread and wine are received not as ordinary food, but as "we have been taught ...is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." Second, I find his rejection of the "priesthood" of Christ unconvincing -- mostly on the basis of his rejection of the letter to the Hebrews. In this, Wills, reminds me of Luther in his rejection of the Epistle of James, because it didn't fit his overall thesis. Ironically, if Wills really wants to reject the Roman Catholic notion of a specially ordained priesthood, he would have done much better to follow Luther in his insistence of the true priesthood of Christ (especially as expounded in Hebrews) and the share in it that every Christian has. In this regard I think that Wills himself is a bit confused as to what is meant by the word "sacrifice".Read more ›

On p. 16, Wills quotes a passage from Sermon 227 by St. Augustine, which Wills claims is "Augustine's denial of the real presence of Jesus in the elements of the meal."

But Wills omits a preceding passage in the same sermon, where the Bishop of Hippo writes: "You ought to know what you have received, what you are about to receive, what you ought to receive every day. That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive."

That, in fact, is a brilliant explanation of the Real Presence.

On p. 17, Wills also says that, at least up through the St. Augustine's time in the early Fifth Century, there was "no reenactment of Jesus' Last Supper, no 'sacrifice of the Mass,' no consecration of bread and wine; nothing that resembled what priests now claim to do."

Yet the bishop of Hippo also writes in Sermon 227, "after the consecration of the sacrifice of God... we say the Lord's Prayer."

By not bringing up these quotes from the exact same sermon he distorts, Wills completely misleads the reader.

This book arrived today and I spent several hours with it, reading, underlining, making notes. It's well written, well reasoned and very well documented. I'll be studying it for quite some time. ------ I will be purchasing copies of this book for some Catholic friends. ------ This is exactly the kind of deep exploration of Catholic beliefs that I welcome with all my heart. I welcome the effort here of a scholar to go back to the biblical passages upon which a seemingly crucial belief is supposedly based, and examine those passages carefully, moving on then to the Didache, and to the work of the Church Fathers who supposedly influenced the evolution of the belief. (I myself in my own unscholarly and amateur way feel drawn to do this. And long ago, I searched my New Testament diligently to try to find a justification for an anointed all male Catholic priesthood and I could find none. ) --- This book goes much deeper than I could ever go into the concept of the Eucharist and the concept of Transubstantiation, and into Atonement theory, and into many other related vitally important theological matters as well. The scope is immense. The implications of Wills' questions are immense. I found the discussion and the documentation to be a great gift. --- I wish I were able to describe in greater theological detail why I find this so valuable. For me this is fresh air. This is bright light. The 2,000 year old complex and multi-layered Catholic Belief System needs this. This is an honest and timely and illuminating pursuit of truth.

If you are at all interested in a painstaking review of the enigmatic New Testament's Letter to the Hebrews, this is the book for you.

Published at a time when the Catholic Church is experiencing hemorrhaging membership in America and Europe, when the number of Catholic priests is dwindling, when the power of the hierarchy over ordinary Catholics (lay and religious) continues to weaken, and when these Catholics witness the betrayal of American nuns, for example, the Vatican attack on women religious, the book will amplify serious questions on the minds of many thinking Catholics, such as: How can I trust and respect the church's dictatorial, non-pastoral leadership? and Why am I still Catholic? See Repair My House at Repair My House: Becoming a "Kindom" Catholic and Double Crossed at Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns.

The almost concurrent release of Alex Gibney's HBO documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa" that reveals the conspiracy related to the church's cover up of the way priests have used their positions of sacred trust to assault young boys placed in their charge as well as telling how Vatican officials at the highest level kept silent to protect the image of the church and its financial interests, makes the book a must read for thinking Catholics.

Garry Wills, a cradle Catholic, spent five years as a Jesuit seminarian. Drawing on his expertise in classical languages and his deep knowledge of ecclesiastical history, he argues that the Catholic priesthood is grounded on a foundation of sand.Read more ›